Dark and cool. I rest in a wooden frame inside a stone vault, surrounded by dark green glass bottles similar to myself. I have been here a very long time. Long ago, there was the searing heat of the furnace, my mother’s burning womb. Briefly, briefly I was soft and malleable. They shaped me, polished me, filled me and corked me. Then, the long, dark wait.

Humans come and go, weeks or months apart. They used to carry torches to chase away the dark. You could see them coming down the tunnels of the cellar, preceded by the yellow glow. Now there are electric lamps set in the stone ceiling, strong and bright.

Dark and cool. Dry. Over the years, dust settles over me like slowly falling snow. The oak shelf underneath me hardens, blackens.

Most of the humans look similar. The same hairline, the same eyes, but their clothes change decade by decade, century by century. One man used to come down once a month to turn me over, turning us all over. Eventually, another man, similar but younger, came down with him and made him stop. That was good. You should not turn wine bottles over. The sediment inside me has now settled firmly, and it will not sour my wine.

The humans, when they come, tend to tend to take one of my fellow bottles with them. They come, they take one of us, and when they leave they take the light with them. Leaving the rest of us here in the long, long dark. There were other bottles here when I first arrived, but they are all gone now. Others, who came here long after me, have been taken away. I remain, decade by decade, century by century.

The lights come on, flooding the dusty cellar. Footsteps. A human comes, and stops in front of me. The same sharp hairline, the same green eyes. The colour of the deep, windswept ocean. The colour of my glass. Carefully, reverently, he lifts me from my shelf. I am carried along the cellar halls, and up a stairway, into the light. After all this time, at last, I leave the long dark behind me.

The man carries me through wood-paneled hallways, and into a dining room lit by candles. I am gingerly placed on a table covered in rich, white cloth, in front of a woman. Next to me is a tall, wide wine glass. The man wraps an arm around the woman, telling her about me, boasting about my origin and my age.

The man grabs me by the neck, picks up a corkscrew, and lowers it towards me. Slowly, slowly, it penetrates my cork and then – with a rush, almost an explosion – I am uncorked.

I am placed back by the wineglass. Soon, soon I will be poured.

The man and the woman talk. It starts tender, careful but hesitant. Two humans probing each other. The man makes a comment. There is silence. When the woman speaks again the conversation is suddenly confrontational and bitter. The man raises his voice, and the woman shouts back. They are angry, hostile.

They stand, screaming, gesturing wildly. Suddenly, the man grabs the woman by the throat. The woman’s hand reaches out blindly, and finds me. With mindless panic she swings, and I hit the man across the temple.

I shatter into pieces. The man falls, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The woman stares, and clamps both hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. Then she runs.

The man lies next to my shards. Blood mingles with the wine. The man is no more. I am no more. The long dark claims us both.

Her lips are the color of the duvet across the room, spread smooth and velvet-red as the petals of the roses that she sometimes sets beside it. Her eyes are shining, lustrous-dark. She tilts me this way and that and the light catches us both, her skin radiant, lashes gossamer-fine, curtains that shimmer against half-open windows.

What day is it? What time is this? When was I last outside this room?

My mistress sets me down again, face-down, and once more I have nothing. The wood of the vanity is as dark and infinite as her eyes but not nearly so bright.

I hear a voice – not hers. Her mother’s. I remember her mother. If I had a heart it would leap. As it is, I do nothing. Nothing but lie here and hope to be touched again.

“Are you ready?”

I hear my mistress laugh. It’s close to me – so close! Why is she not holding me? I feel the faint stirring of air as something moves past me. A spritzing hiss. The touch of settling perfume-particles, softer than dust-motes, caressing my back.

“I’ve been ready since the day he asked me out.”

They both laugh at this. I realize what is happening now. I remember when her mother married, too. She looked just as beautiful.

I wonder what she looks like now.

“Oh!” Her mother’s voice again. Surprise, and pleasure. “You still have it!”

“Well, yeah,” my mistress says, half-amused, half-flummoxed. “Duh.”

I’m being lifted.

She’s still beautiful.

“Oof,” says the woman holding me. “The last time I looked in this thing I was your age.”

“You still look my age,” teases her daughter. I know it’s teasing because I see the woman holding me laugh, watch her eyes crease, her teeth flash in the way I used to know so well. I see her half-glance over her shoulder at her daughter. I’m angled slightly as she looks and so I see her too, resplendent, a glimpse of dark-haired ivory across the room.

They look the same.

She is exactly as I remember.

“I’m glad you still have it,” says the woman holding me, and she smiles again – at me. Directly at me. Her free hand touches my frame, ever so lightly. “Your grandmamma gave it to me, you know.”

“Of course I know,” from across the room, with gentle good humor. I know, too. I remember her grandmamma.

I hope she is well.

“I only use it for special occasions, actually,” says my mistress, and her mother glances at her again, startled, amused. I’m still held facing her and I still think she looks the same as when I last saw her. Perhaps more weary. Perhaps more wise. But she is the same woman that looked into me for more than twenty years. Who held me. Polished me. Loved me.

“It’s a mirror, Josie,” says my holder, laughter in her voice. “You can look at it any old time.”

For a moment there’s silence. I can’t see Josie, but I can see her mother. She’s curious, affectionate, vibrant.

She hasn’t changed.

“Sure,” says Josie at last, and then she’s here. She takes me from her mother and I have a moment’s fierce reluctant longing, the bedroom’s furnishings flashing before me, but then I see Josie again, and it’s all right. She is wonderful, too. “I know. But it’s special. I mean – it’s yours. You got ready with it on your special days. Grandmamma did too. And her mom, and her mom,” she adds, quickly, and I hear the suppressed laughter in her voice.

“I only look at it when I want to remember what I look like for something. Really remember.”

Can our object have feelings and take action? Or is that too anthropomorphic?

I'm pretty sure Sitting Here has said strictly no actions. AFAIK feelings are OK and even encouraged.

Here's a helpful conversation from IRC:

code:

12:12 Leadoutincuffs sh, question about your prompt: so the object has no agency, right?
12:12 sh hmmmmmm baaaaaaaaaasically
12:12 sh it can think, observe, and have a personality
12:12 sh but it can't like, get up and move around and talk
12:14 Third Hmmm
12:14 Third So me on a bad day
12:15 Leadoutincuffs Is there an example somewhere of a story written like that?
12:15 sh i dunno!
12:15 Third Uh I wrote one
12:15 sh we are venturing into uncharted territory i just wanted to see what happened
12:15 Third It's not a great example
12:15 sh i mean someone somewhere has, i'm sure
12:15 Third But it is an example
12:16 Third [url]https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6013&title=Closed+Equation[/url]
12:18 Leadoutincuffs Yeah, it's an interesting idea. It kinda does break one of the rules, but I guess plot can still happen, and the object can still be invested in it.
12:19 sh i'm hoping it will force people to focus on voice, themes, imagery, and having a distinct point of view
12:19 sh but who knows

When the palace came to being, so did I. Upon me walked many a statesman whom I led to chambers, offices, and the state room. The presidents and their families lived here. Some I remember longingly, a few not so much. One I despise. The name? I would rather be pulverized than peddle Herostratian fame. To me, he was the Corruptor.

I first encountered the devil when he was defence minister. Privy to the mutterings under his breath, I feared for the president, a man of noble heart, but of no confidence to the people he fought for. What fear I regarded for that man was doubled for his family: a gentle wife, and three loving children who chased each other over my steps, sliding down my banisters when the adults were out of sight.

The Corruptor’s ambitions were insatiable, and my fears were realized. On the day of the coup d’état, his thugs seized the president’s family. They clung to me, my agony a sliver to theirs, but a sliver eternalized as their nails tore splinters off my balustrade. No child has touched me since.

The Palace turned foul, becoming whoresty and abattoir in one. Above me, the wall was stripped of the portraits of those who served within us past, forced to the indignity of bearing his mural alone. The floor, once host to galas renowned abroad, became the grounds for his sadistic circus. I speak of their sufferings from proximity. I assume no part of the palace went undefiled.

Of course, the living hated him more, and if an unliving as I can hate, mine should pale to the murdered. I am unworthy to speak of his tyranny. Had I recourse to my own unmaking, I would will myself gone. But I am, so I will curse. What I wish I could have given for one moment to break my steps beneath his feet, or to collapse my banister those nights he disgraced this house, drunkenly pawing his way up and down, enslaved in tow. What I wish I could have given to have him suffer even a mere sprain. Yet however grotesque his asymmetrical figure, I never had the satisfaction of even a stumble from him.

His end couldn't come soon enough. As the treasury shrunk, his enemies grew. The day came when the last of his armed idolaters turned praetorian to the desired persuasion. The palace was stormed. Boot upon boot clomped. They dragged him out to the top of me, the very spot where he pleasured himself to the suffering below.

They started sawing his head. His screams turned to a gargle, there was a hurrah as they let his head roll down me, and like a champagne bottle uncorked, blood overflowed, seeping like a waterfall to my bottom step. I savoured it all.

A new president has been installed. He is a wretch, but not a devil. The portraits are damaged, but have returned to the wall. The floor is divested of galas, but blood pools no more. The Corruptor is dead, but not effaced. Like you who age in wrinkles, I aged a cranny, though faint to perception. When jubilation at the tyrant’s death had settled, they mopped his blood. A drop, ever so slight, seeped into my age, coagulated now. The blood I savoured has soured. Condemnation of memory, I cannot.

“My grandma said mum was born in this bed,” the girl said, running her fingers down my beautifully turned length. I remember your grandmother, I thought. Gladys; what a woman. She knew how to live.

“Ew,” said the boy. His hands paused their exploration of her body. I groaned and the canopy sagged.

She pressed her face against his chest. “I need to talk about something,” she said. The boy’s hands flopped to his sides. God dammit, I thought.

“I think my parents are going to get divorced,” she said, and began to cry. “I think mum’s having an affair!”

The boy sighed and hugged her, patting her back platonically.

Stop wasting your youth! I glowered at them. But they were oblivious to me; I may as well have been back in storage, with the other relics of Gladys’ life.

***

“We shouldn’t…” said the woman, kicking off her shoes as they stumbled, intertwined, onto the mattress. Oh yes, yes you should, I thought. I remembered the night she was born, blood-soaked and wailing. With a set of lungs like that she was bound to be a real screamer.

The man’s hands were under her clothes. My long-dry sap went taut and the canopy quivered.

The woman’s phone buzzed like an angry bee. All three of us glared at it.

“It’s my daughter,” she said.

The man flopped backwards on the bed.

“She says netball practice has been cancelled. I need to go pick her up.”

“My kids will be home soon too,” he said. “I should go.”

She cupped one hand around his cheek and gently caressed his jaw. Then her hand dropped into her lap. “We should stop doing this, shouldn’t we,” she said.

No you loving shouldn’t! I raged in silent response. Gladys wouldn’t have hesitated!

The man nodded as he buttoned his shirt. “You’re right,” he said. They smiled at each other, carefully not touching.

You’re just lying to yourselves! I railed at them. The bed frame creaked, echoing my frustration.

***

The woman’s husband sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. I looked eagerly for his mistress but it was his wife who followed him into the spare bedroom.

“We need to talk,” he said, shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on the floor. The woman crossed her arms, her lips a tight line.

“I’ve been having an affair,” he said, sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”

The woman’s face sagged and she dropped onto the bed next to him. “So have I,” she whispered. They looked at each other with confusion and shock, and then, with understanding.

“I’m worried about our daughter,” he said. “Are we terrible parents?”

“No! I mean, we try our best, don’t we?” she replied, leaning close to him.

“Do you think we could patch things up and...." He put his hand on her thigh. A shiver ran up my shafts.

The man put his arms around his wife and they sank together onto the bed.

Yes, good, you’re still in love, now let’s get going, I thought. My varnish glistened with anticipation.

The woman snuggled her head into her husband’s shoulder and they lay, clinging to each other.

Don’t just loving cuddle! I strained against the corners of the bed frame, making the canopy shake. Ancient nails loosened and somewhere a spring popped. Slats cracked free from the frame. The canopy bucked, threatening to tear itself from my tips.

“What’s happening?” cried the woman.

“I don’t know!” her husband replied.

The slats snapped and thrust triumphantly through the mattress, tenting the sheets and sending Mr and Mrs Cuddle-Time tumbling onto the floor.